TheHoobastankConspiracyArc2:Crawling in the Dark
by Kentra02
Summary: Duo needs the answers to his questionable memories, but where can he turn after dealing with so much pain?


Author: Kentra Shinataku  
  
Title: The Hoobastank Conspiracy Arc #2: Crawling in the Dark  
  
Anime: Gundam Wing  
  
Pairings: 2x5, memories of 1x2  
  
Category: Angst, Sap  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Spoilers: Uhm, nope.  
  
Warnings: angst, memories of v. mild abuse, beginner's sap^.^, mentions of NCS  
  
Disclaimer: I own nothing, I tell you, nothing! If I did, I wouldn't be this poor^_~  
  
Notes: For those of you who are reading this on FFnet, you probably haven't read the first story in this arc yet. I advise you to, it will probably make more sense, BUT, it's NC-17, and I believe in saving my ass from the FFnet police so you'll have to go to my site and read it. it's at www. deathandpassion. cjb. net (I spaced it out, but I don't know if it will still be blocked out. If not, the address is on my main profile page).  
  
**********  
  
The Hoobastank Conspiracy Arc #2  
  
Crawling in the Dark  
  
Duo sat in absolute silence, still as death, drowning in the glowing bath of illuminating firelight dancing across his body. Over two hours had passed since Wufei had pulled into the driveway of the two story house that he and Duo shared, and the braided ex-pilot hadn't let a word escape his tongue, disregarding a hastily murmured 'thank you' in regards to the night's previous events. All he could do was stare into the flames that crackled with lively delight in the fireplace. He hadn't even flinched when the electricity failed and snapped to darkness due to the heat storm that dragged through night air outside. Wufei was worried.  
  
~Help me carry on,  
  
Assure me it's okay   
  
to use my heart and not my eyes  
  
to navigate the darkness~  
  
"I brought you some chocolate milk." Wufei extended his arm, offering the glass of the ice cold substance that his fiancé loved. Albeit, he loved _hot_ chocolate much more, but the air was so humid and cumbersome, and there was a healthy fire burning, causing his own sleek black hair to stick to the back of his neck; hot chocolate would be an irrational bait of comfort. Duo's eyes flickered, treacherously near to Wufei's reaching limb, yet he didn't accept the offered drink, his eyes remaining the only part of him that showed any sign of movement.  
  
Wufei sighed and set the perspiring glass on the end table to Duo's right, too concerned to worry about retrieving a coaster to raise it from the wood. The table could easily be replaced, his lover could not, and right now, Duo needed somebody even if he wouldn't admit it.  
  
"Do you want to talk?" Wufei asked gingerly, wishing that Duo would be able to trust him with his emotions after all this time. But trust wasn't something that Duo Maxwell threw around lightly.   
  
"I'm alright 'Fei." His barely audible voice sighed from his lips in a near silent breath, shaky and broken, and his mind battled with his own words. //Please don't leave it like that, 'Fei. Please ask me again. Please... just ask me if I'm okay...//  
  
Wufei curled up next to him, resting his head on Duo's shoulder. He could feel the fine-tuned tremors shooting through his body, the same trembling that took him when he fought for dominance of tears.  
  
~I wish I could know  
  
if the directions that I take  
  
And all the choices that I make  
  
won't end up all for nothing~  
  
"No you're not," Wufei whispered, almost as quietly as Duo's previous reaction, "Please talk to me, Duo. Tell me... tell me about you and Heero."  
  
Duo's shoulders tensed at the name of his ex-lover after what had happened but mere hours ago, displaying his vulnerability unwillingly.  
  
"I-I don't think you should know..."  
  
"Why not?" Wufei turned his head to place soft lips on his cheek for a brief moment, before breaking away to continue, "I won't think any less of you," he kissed him again," I won't be angry with you. If anybody, my anger will be directed towards Heero, I'm sure."  
  
Images of lust-filled cobalt eyes, rough and callused, tanned hands, sweat soaked chocolate hair spun in Duo's sight and he sunk his teeth into his bottom lip, a thoughtful, stretched look tremmoring over his face.  
  
~How much longer   
  
until I finally know  
  
Because I'm looking   
  
and I just can't see  
  
What's in front of me~  
  
"I don't want you to... to..." //I don't want you to be disgusted by me.//  
  
"You don't want me to... what, love? Wufei asked, frowning. Duo didn't answer, couldn't answer, and coiled defensively, covering his face with trembling fingers. And arm draped tenderly around his stomach and he instinctively tensed, shifting away, an impulse that he had kept strict control over since the end of the war.  
  
"Never mind," Duo murmured against the fabric covering his knees, "I don't want you to stop loving me."  
  
Wufei was taken aback by those words, he refused to think that Duo feared him taking his love away. He lifted his finger to his fiancé's chin, drawing his face so he could see the emotion in his eyes.  
  
"Duo, listen to what I'm going to say," he paused, looking for some signal that he held his attention, "Nothing you could say to me could ever make me stop loving you. Whatever happened between you and Heero has already happened and isn't going to push me away, it will only make our love stronger. Do you understand that, love?" Uncertainty gleamed in his eye, making his worry streaked face appear childlike in the dim glow of the firelight. Duo's breath caught in his chest, making his simple sigh sound more like a strangled sob.  
  
"'Fei, I don't want to believe that something could kill our love so easily, but a lot... happened," he waited a few seconds, as if deciding what to conceal, but all that he had left to say came out, "between me and Heero."  
  
"He hurt you, as much as I wish it wasn't true. He hurt you and I denied it all along. I knew he was doing it and I couldn't admit it. I need to hear what I couldn't believe on my own," Wufei pleaded, though his motives were not wholly focused upon hearing the truth for himself. This dishonesty stung him inside, hating to lie to his future husband, but Duo's wounds needed healed, and they never would if he kept them trapped inside.  
  
"It's so... hard... to talk about it. It was my... fault. I... didn't say... no. I didn't hurt him back." Duo's voice was shattered and broken already, Wufei didn't know how he would get through the tale. But they had gotten through so much, through the memories of his life on the street, through the memories of so many redundant deaths, and they had gotten through them together. They could do it again.  
  
~Show me what it's for  
  
Make me understand it,  
  
I've been crawling in the dark  
  
looking for the answers~  
  
"It wasn't your fault," Wufei said, unsure of what memory he was soothing, though he had a pretty clear idea of what had been done to him during his relationship with the Wing pilot.  
  
"You don't know, 'Fei, you weren't there. I... I could have stopped him." Duo's whisper sounded almost childlike, the small voice that assailed him in indecision. Wufei enclosed himself tighter around Duo, wishing that all of Duo's pain could disappear in his arms.  
  
"You're right, I don't know, that's why I want you to tell me. However, I do know that Yuy gets what he wants. If you had tried to stop him, I don't know if you could. I am almost certain that I couldn't."  
  
Duo leaned against him now, submitting himself to his lover's caring embrace, knowing that he wasn't calling him weak with the last statement. Heero was too strong, and he used that strength to get what he wanted.  
  
"I thought I loved him, 'Fei. I really thought I did. I realize now that I was just desperate..." he trailed off, unwilling to finish the thought. //Desperate for someone to care.// "I was just hoping I could teach him to love and he could feel like I did. Infatuated. But... h-he was never loved. He didn't know what it was... I guess..." Duo mumbled, barely believing that those words held much truth. Heero could have loved him back, never being loved might have made his will to love stronger. Wufei heard the decisive word 'desperate' and automatically knew what he was reluctant to hear.  
  
"Don't," Wufei hissed, causing Duo to tense instinctively, "Don't make excuses for him. He treated you horribly. Please don't deny it."  
  
"It wasn't as bad as you think," Duo whispered meekly. Wufei gave him what would be an amused glance, if he hadn't been so serious.  
  
"Duo, I saw your bruises."  
  
"No..."  
  
"He always yelled at you."  
  
"No..."  
  
"I heard... I heard him rape you."  
  
"No!" Wufei bit his lower lip, mentally disciplining himself for being so forward, but Duo would never have come to say it himself, for he was just as frightened by the truth was Wufei was. He tangled his fingers into the black fabric of his shirt, hugging tighter into the soft material to console the shuddering body in his arms.  
  
"H-he didn't. I... let him... and... he just did what... I let him..." Duo choked, scarcely able to hold control over his sobbing breath. Wufei was appalled at Duo's confession, not the idea that he had offered his body to Heero, but because he knew damn well that Duo wasn't willing. Duo had cared so much about him. Wufei remember standing in the doorway of the kitchen that night, just out of view of the two arguing. Duo was so full of emotion, so full of life, and Heero didn't care. He hit him with insult after insult. Wufei had been desperate to break in, to save Duo from the ridicule, but instead he watched as Heero walked out into the storm, watched Duo lean against the refrigerator and completely unhinge and all he had done was stand it the shadows and watch.  
  
~/I shouldn't be watching this, it's none of my business. It's so hard to stand here and take this, and it isn't even directed towards me. But you stand there and take it, and it's hurting you so much. I can see unshed tears in your eyes, you're silently screaming for release, and Yuy is blind to it. Completely blind to it. I want to run in, to shield you with my body and my heart, especially when the green glass bowl flies from his fingertips and crashes into your head. There is blood running from a new cut in on your forehead, but you don't even cry out when you're hit. I admire the way your hand doesn't reach to inspect it, to wipe the blood away. No, you're too strong. You'll let the blood stain you, you accept it.  
  
But you shouldn't.  
  
"I have to go."  
  
"Where the hell do you have to go?" I'm glad that you're fighting back with your voice since you refuse to fight him with your body. Sometimes I think your words are your best weapons.  
  
"Away, and it's none of your damn business where."  
  
"The hell it isn't!"  
  
"I need to get away from _you_, you're a distraction." Ouch. That even hurt _me_, it's no surprise that I can see you flinch. You didn't move a muscle when that bowl collided with your head. You're so insecure, and Heero is blind to that too. No, he _does_ see it, and he knows how to use it against you. He loves to hurt you, and you love him too much to care. If only I could fight him _for_ you, to hurt him to help you, but by hurting him, I'd lose your trust, because you love him, and I don't know why. It's funny, you trust him more than me and he ra--.. he hurts you. I want that trust from you, strong and forgiving, but I still have to earn it.  
  
What did _he_ do it earn it?  
  
"You're actually just going to _leave_?" I look away from you, I can't bear to see the pain in your eyes, the helplessness, those things that I can't control, that I would do anything to soothe. Your eyes are on fire in a fearful passion and that indigo blaze is sharp enough to burn a hole through the body they are frantically scraping over. But the flames are reflected in the metallic gaze of your lover, shooting back to burn you instead.  
  
"Yes." His eyes are so dull and pitiless, and I wonder how anybody could ever look at you with such an uncaring guise.   
  
"Don't you have a caring bone in your fucking body? You know how much I love you!" That stings me in a wound that you'll never see. It's not that you love someone other than me, I can't control your heart no matter how much I wish I could, but because you have to beg him to return that love and he refuses. You beg him, but I've been here all along, offering my heart freely.  
  
"I _can't_ love you. We're in a war, Duo." I can't believe he can say something so cruel and yet so logical in such an uncaring tone. No, not an uncaring _tone_, that voice is so uncaring, it doesn't even commit a _tone_. You're bristling with anger, but I have a suspicion that the anger is there only to keep the tears clenched within. I'm afraid of what Heero would do to you if you let him see you that vulnerable, and a part of my mind tells me that you fear the same.  
  
"Right. You just keep playing _Perfect Soldier_, bastard." For a moment, I think he's going to lunge forward and hit you, but instead he smirks, and that little cover up tells me that your words bit him. He's leaving you now, and although it's tearing you up, I know it's best that he's gone. I wish he would love you like you were meant to be loved, because obviously you've got your heart set on him and him alone. What's wrong with him that he can't love you, can't feel the way I do? What's wrong with me that I have to stand here and watch you, seeing you cry? You're pounding on the refrigerator door with clenched fists, but I can't even walk in and ask what's wrong, I don't think I could restrain from wrapping my arms around you. I'm sorry that I have to do this, to watch you from afar, to turn around and walk away from this door and pretend that this didn't happen.  
  
But I have to. This is what I always do. You love him and I can't stop you./~  
  
"Why did you let him do this to you? H-he could have killed you!" Duo was trembling, overcome with memories that Wufei only wished he could see, and he buried his face against Wufei's neck, his words coming out in a breath across his skin.  
  
"He couldn't help it, 'Fei, he has insecurities just like the rest of us." The confession came smooth and unbroken with a clarity like light in the darkness. Wufei pulled his face back in a kind of gentle surprise and ghosted a free hand along Duo's jaw, bracing his face to meet his eyes. Duo's amethyst eyes were raw, drawing Wufei into his vulnerable pool of shattered innocence, showing him something that he hadn't before seen, and somehow it didn't bother him as much as he felt it should have.  
  
"You still care about him." It wasn't a question. Duo's raw expression switched to a rueful fear.  
  
"Y-yes. And I don't want to." He burrowed his face back into Wufei's shoulder as if testing his affections. Would Wufei still love him after such a profession? "I don't want to," he murmured against his skin. Wufei tightened his grip in reassurance, wordlessly telling Duo that he still love him.   
  
~I will dedicate  
  
and sacrifice my   
  
everything for just  
  
a seconds worth   
  
of how my story's ending~  
  
A soft sigh escaped his lips before releasing a reluctant query.  
  
"Do you... do you still love _me_?" What he wanted to ask, he didn't say. //Did you ever love me?//  
  
"Gods, Wu, how could you think I don't? I never _loved_ Heero, I just... you're the only one I could ever say I loved."  
  
"So what is it you feel for him?" he asked, aware that he was being too forward again, but he couldn't help it. He had to know.  
  
"I care a... lot... but not for him. Just... just _about_ him. He can't control a lot of what he says an' what he does. H-he's never been loved." His tone was quiet, desperate once again for consolation, yearning for forgiveness. Wufei's hand twisted in his silky braid, knowing that his fiancé savored the sensation of fingers in his hair, drawing comfort from it. At the silent return, Duo continued, talking to soothe his own fear of rejection.  
  
"He needed to heal pain with pain. Inflicting it eased his own a-and I knew... and I let him." Wufei placed a calming kiss upon Duo's head, settling his warm lips in his sweat soaked chestnut bangs. "-and you're g-going to hate me and it's... my fault. I'm sorry..." Duo was too far gone and broken that one gentle kiss couldn't bring him back.  
  
"Duo!" Wufei exclaimed with a sudden force, "Duo I love you. You love me. These stray feelings you have for him won't change how I feel about you, how we feel about each other." Duo tilted his head, dipping his cheek against his lover's shoulder so that he could look into the charcoal depths of his eyes. His own shone with sleek tears glazing over amethyst, so deep that Wufei had to fight not to be lost in the ocean of fear and pain.  
  
~Show me what it's for,  
  
Make me understand it,  
  
I've been crawling in the dark  
  
looking for the answers~  
  
"We'll always love each other, right?" He sounded young, childlike and wounded in his innocently frightened state and his breath was hitching, formulating sobs that shook his thin body. Eye contact remained as Wufei cloaked himself around his fiance to soothe his cries, providing the comfort he needed, the consolation he longed for.  
  
"Forever, Duo. Wo ai ni. It will never change, no matter what." Suddenly, Duo stiffened in his arms, and for a moment Wufei thought he had said something wrong, something that Duo didn't want to hear.  
  
"What's wrong, love?"  
  
"The party... I don't want to have to see him again so soon." Wufei had almost forgotten the arranged get together that led to this situation. The other three pilots had agreed to meet for a sort of reunion after four years of rare communication. They wanted to rekindle the bonds that they had created, that had in some cases kept them alive.  
  
"I won't leave your side, Duo. I won't let him touch you," he relieved, hoping to calm the tense body in his arms.  
  
"But..." he made a face as if sparring with confusion, "at the club, you said nothing would happen..."  
  
"I lost sight of you, and I'm sorry. But here in our own house nothing can happen, I promise you." Duo smiled, giving in due to sheer exhaustion and curled so that he could watch the embers dying in the fireplace. Taking a drink of chocolate milk from the glass that had been almost forgotten on the table, he closed his eyes, letting the darkness bathe him, and for the first time, realized that Wufei was the answer to all of his questions.  
  
**********  
  
Kentra: ::wipes hands on shirt:: Well, that's that.  
  
Duo: What do you mean 'that's that'? Haven't you written #3 yet?  
  
Kentra: Gee, sorry Duo, I'm only human. ::rolls eyes:: I've been a bit busy y'know.  
  
Wufei: I sort of like this new leaf you're turning over, you haven't killed anybody yet.  
  
Kentra: Eh, well don't get too comfy, you won't like the next one.  
  
Heero: Oh, are they going to finally get to hear _my_ side of the story?  
  
Kentra: Er... no. Not yet.   
  
Heero: ::sighs:: You should get to that sometime soon.  
  
Kentra: ::mutters exasperatedly:: Impatient boys....  
  
********** 


End file.
